Sir: You say [IC50, From Hegel-San to Niat] that “nothing is absolutely true.” Is that right? I am assured by my scientific friends that there are two absolutes; the speed of light and absolute zero. This seems to be beyond question. At another level, however, the matter may be mostly semantic. We still have to… read more »
A big problem in systematic ideology, and one that seems likely to be with us for a while yet, is to pin down the first appearance of each of the major ideologies. Not just their emergence as enduring political movements but their truly first appearance, first in any field. It seems probable that even the… read more »
During a squabble in the House of Commons one Tory whip described the condition of the Parliamentary Labour Party as “total anarchy.” His own side, on the contrary, is run like the Praetorian Guard: “If the chief whip says ‘jump out of the window’ we form an orderly line and out we go.” (Sunday Times… read more »
The Labour Party Conference of October was remarkable for the prevalence of agreement; unlike earlier ones it did not justify Norman Tebbit’s description of the comrades and brothers as “firmly united in fraternal hatred of each other’s guts”. An editorial in the Independent of October 7 spoke of “a respectable measure of unity at most… read more »
The Gnostics were the arch-rebels of Christian society from the second to the Fourth Century. The Pauline Christians of Rome set out to crush them and to hand over an obedient and conformist church to the Roman Emperor. These things they did, as Constantine is our witness. In those early days there were some 80… read more »